Beware the Bakun bribe
In all the elections, Barisan Nasional would campaign that only it can bring development. It is a truthful claim because the front would vengefully spread hatred when it loses in any election. If it wins, it will conveniently forget its promises and focus on economic development to enrich certain cronies who, worse still, only know how to make huge profits and never bear any losses.
Look at how the federal government punished Terengganu after BN lost control of it in the last state election; the BN government deprived the already poor rakyat of their petroleum royalties. Sarawak has petroleum, too, and soon, the largest hydro electric dam in Southeast Asia. The humongous output of 2.4gw is mostly to accommodate huge power losses due to the long distribution distance across the South China Sea.
Perhaps Sarawakians don't mind sinking their state under water with more dams just to give cheap electricity that goes toward 'development' in Peninsular Malaysia.
Building the dam only sounds and looks good but how do we service the debts when the project is not viable and unprofitable? Would Sarawakians bail out Bakun when the project fails? The failure would give the federal government all the more reason to take over more of their forest and land resources as a means of settling this massive debt.
No doubt Sarawakians needs development but it must be based on sound economic and business models. Don't get into the trap of a loan shark which lures them with a Trojan horse project that will rip off everything from the state.
This is called development robbery. Sarawakians must ask themselves, is there an electricity supply problem in the state? Do they need the dam?
